BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY PROTOCOL
(BD PROTOCOL)
The Biological Diversity Protocol (BD Protocol) is an output of the Biodiversity Disclosure Project (BDP), a project started in early 2018, managed by the National Biodiversity and Business Network (NBBN) of South Africa and hosted by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT). Through close collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, the BD Protocol has been developed to provide companies with an accounting and reporting framework which helps consolidate biodiversity impact data in a standardised, comparable, credible and unbiased manner.
The BD Protocol further aims to enable any organisation to identify, measure, account for and manage its impacts on biodiversity for various business applications, from site management and internal reporting to external mandatory and/or voluntary disclosures. For instance, it can be instrumental to companies working on voluntary, science-based biodiversity commitments or targets for the forthcoming CoP 15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Overview of the BD Protocol
The BD Protocol aims to enable any organisation, from any sector, to identify, measure and account for its impacts on biodiversity for various business applications, from site management and internal reporting to external mandatory and/or voluntary disclosures.
For instance, it can be instrumental to companies working on voluntary, biodiversity commitments or targets for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework3 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Accounting Standard
Download the Biological Diversity Protocol Document here
BD Protocol Launch – Webinar
4 March 2021
Case Studies
Updating the accounts
Sibanye-Stillwater publicly discloses their first annual biodiversity footprint revision
June 2023
In 2022 The Endangered Wildlife Trust’s National Biodiversity and Business Network produced a pilot assessment of Sibanye-Stillwater’s biodiversity footprint for its direct operations in South Africa and United States (see below). This was globally the first public disclosure of a company’s net and periodic biodiversity impacts in accordance with the BD Protocol.
Committed to a process of continual improvement and annual updates, until post mine closure or until a mine has been sold, Sibanye-Stillwater engaged the EWT to undertake an annual revision of its biodiversity footprint with updated information from 2022 against the 2021 baseline study.
May 2022: The Endangered Wildlife Trust and Sibanye-Stillwater release the world’s first global biodiversity footprint of a company.
Why and How
Simone Liefferink of Sibanye-Stillwater discusses their footprint targets and Gabi Teren of the NBBN discusses the footprint results
Q&A
Blangslev Solar Plant Denmark
Eskom’s Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme and Sere Wind Farm
South Africa
